A thoughtful and sensitive book about the meeting of two cultures and eras. Zarah, a savey teenager from New York, learns about an entirely different way of life when she visits her grandmother on an island off of the coast of South Carolina. Ms. Seabrooke skillfully deals with the dilemma created when Zarah drops back into an era of old southern mentality. She is able to treat her characters with sensitivity and dignity while telling this story of learning to bridge the generations between Zarah and her grandmother.

David M. Emmons, in The Butte Irish, examines the development of Butte, Montana, as an Irish town, tracing the story from the Potato Famine to about 1925. He focuses on two major questions: (a) What made Butte such a popular destination for Irish immigrants, both directly from Ireland and from other Irish areas of the US? and, (b) How did the development of an Irish enclave in Butte affect the development of the city? He goes on to examine the evolution of class relations within the Irish in Butte. Emmons describes Butte as a unique location in America for the study of an ethnic community. He argues that the town developed in such a way and at such a time that it was one of the only towns in the country to have a strong working-class, immigrant community in a position of major influence and power. There were several keys that made this path of city evolution possible. The first was the switch from silver and gold mining to copper production in the 1870's. This is key for Butte's "Irishness" on several levels. First, because of the large capital investment required for copper mining, Butte was forced to industrialize to a much greater extent than other major gold and silver mining camps of the West. Thus, Butte was the only one of these mining camps to become a major city. Immigrants from many of these camps came to Butte in large numbers. The timing of the beginning of Butte's copper era is a second major factor. The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's caused huge numbers of Irish to immigrate to America. In the years immediately following the famine, the Irish were nearly forty percent of those immigrating to the United States. Large numbers of Irish continued to immigrate in the next thirty years, supplying the US with many unskilled workers. Many of these Irish went to the mining camps of the west, the coal mines of Pennsylvania, or the copper mines of Michigan, because mining was one of the only industries they were familiar with. As many of the western mining camps became "played out," or ran out of viable ore, in the late nineteenth century, the Irish looked to the developing Butte. Because Butte was becoming an established city only when the Irish started going there, it did not have a previously existing community of entrenched middle class Americans, nor did it have a prior political structure. This is another key difference between Butte and other towns with sizable Irish populations such as Boston or San Francisco. In pre-existing towns and cities, the middle class often looked down on those of the working class, or at least had control of the political and social structure of the area. It is a well-known fact that Marcus Daly was one of the main reasons so many Irish came to Butte. Daly was the owner of the Anaconda Mining Company, and a strong Irish nationalist. His hiring policies were famous throughout the West, and even in Ireland, as being very generous to the Irish. Emmons lays out these reasons, detailing them extensively. His research was thorough, utilizing "two full carloads" of primary materials including records of Butte churches and Irish social organizations, letters, newspapers. Also cited in Emmons' bibliography are extensive interviews and secondary sources. Emmons is just as thorough in his treatment of the second question. He considers the miners of Butte on many levels. One of the more interesting themes of the book is the discussion of conflicting loyalties within the Irish enclave of the Mining City. The author frames this as the question of whether the people considered themselves "working Irish-Americans" or "Irish-American workers." He examines the politics of the struggling Ireland and its relationship with England, the structure of the Butte social organizations and the way their roles and importances, both absolute and relative to one another, changed and grew during this period, and changing demographics within the Irish and the rest of Butte-Silver Bow. The only complaint to be lodged against The Butte Irish is the author's occasional use of difficult sentence structure. I can't find the quote I was going to use here, but there were a few to choose from. The Butte Irish is a well-written and well-executed account of the development of a town and community, offering many insights into working class ethnography, labor relations, Montana history, and Irish history, among others. Emmons has managed to cover aspects of all these areas, even while maintaining a strong focus and cohesiveness throughout the book.

I used this guidebook in helping me plan a 1999 visit to the highlands and islands of Scotland. I was charmed by the author's stories and literary quotes, which not only provided an excellent background to the places we visited, but also a guide to some of the literature I wanted to read in conjunction with my travels.

Through Ms. Miers' book, I learned of the work of the poet Sorley MacLean and the historian Martin Martin, who wrote a book about the isles of Scotland around 1700 that was instrumental in persuading Dr. Johnson to set off on his famous journey with Boswell years later.

I learned that a medieval bishop in Caithness was set upon by an angry mob and fried in butter for daring to raise taxes on dairy production.

Although my vacation is now just a memory, his book remains on my shelf. I liked it as a travel guide, but I loved it as a source of highland lore connected with some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Miers is sketchy on accommodation (but she did recommend some good places) and even more so on restaurants, but I prefer her book as a keeper. For strong accommodations & restaurants, your best bet is the Rough Guide to Scotland.

I purchased this book recently while waiting to board ship to transport my family and I to Channel Islands for a much anticipated first time camping and backpacking vacation. The Islands are located off the coast of California and after 20 years of living within viewing distance of these beautiful islands, we were finally on our way to explore them. This is not a vacation destination complete with hotels and room service. On the contrary, when you visit the islands, you pack everything in and out, including your water and garbage. It is a visit that must be carefully organized and we spent considerable time loading all our gear and stuffing our backpacks to the point of exploding. We each must have been backpacking over 50 lbs, and when I saw this book in the Island Packers office, I knew another 16 ounces was the last thing I needed to carry on my back. But, it was obvious to all of us, that it was a fortunate purchase for it did precisely what it said it would do -answer questions. You can not go to the Channel Islands and not get caught up in it's incredible beauty and history and not want to know everything you can about them. As we camped and hiked, we referred often to it. The book was an easy resource, as it broke down each island and discussed in a question type format essential vital statistics pertinent to each island. It very efficiently focused on specific topics relating to the wildlife, past history, topography, weather, and plant life. The questions were answered in an interesting format which lead easily to furthur researching if needed. As a primer to the islands, I felt it succeeded very well, as it informed the first time visitor how to get to their destinations and the paperwork you need to get there. It was also accompanied by pictures and maps. I enjoyed that the book was not a typical dry travel manual, but turned out to be a nicely coordinated travel, resource and reference book to the Channel Islands. Oh, and it fit quite well in my backpack after all!

This is required reading for the Celtic music enthusiast with a bent for things Cape Breton. Although, it is a bit dated by now, it is still fun to see photos of young Ashley, Natalie, Dave and Jerry. Sadly, many of the old timers are no longer with us. Get it now before it goes out of print.

That is what this place is like & that is how the author captures the atmosphere of this beautiful place.

This book captures the prestige and elegance of America's most beautiful island.

As the author of this guide, I am partial to thinking IT IS THE BEST guide to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. I will be researching the region from June through August 1998 and would appreciate any comments or suggestions for the next edition. If your suggestion/s is/are used, the publisher will send you a free copy of the third edition.

To begin with, although the Amazon.com screen shows the 1992 edition published by Parnassus Imprints, that edition is no longer available, and Parnassus Imprints no longer has anything to do with Oldale's book; it is now sold in a completely revised and greatly improved edition, published in 2001 by On Cape Publications. If you want this book, you want the new edition.

There are three easily available books aimed at the general reader (rather than professional geologists) on the geology of Cape Cod; two of the three, including this one, also discuss Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. In my opinion, this one, by Robert N. Oldale, is by far the best of the three, although the other two are also worth reading by anyone seriously interested in the subject. Oldale has spent his long career with the US Geological Survey, and much of it has been devoted to research on the soils, geology, and geological history of Cape Cod and the Islands. As a result, he knows more about the subject than anyone else I know or know of. In this book he writes very clearly, for the general reader, and covers the subject thoroughly and with scrupulous accuracy. His discussion is clarified and improved by a large number of apt photographs, figures and sketch maps, most of which are new in this 2001 edition. I love this book.

The geology of Cape Cod is astonishingly complex for a spit of land that seems so simple. It would have been impossible for Oldale to describe all the details in a book of reasonable length. So for the seriously interested reader, the numerous references to other books, maps and monographs, in Appendices A, C, D and F are invaluable. Unfortunately, although most of the material referred to is easy to come by, some of it is not. In particular, the map which underlies Oldale's book (also largely prepared by Oldale) "Geologic Map of Cape Cod and the Islands, Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-1763" can be hard to find. But it can be bought by mail at a very modest price from the Geology Department of the University of Massachusetts. I recommend that anyone who plans to read more than one book on the geology of Cape Cod, or who intends to re-read Oldale's book, get this map. It illustrates admirirably many of the points made by Oldale in the book, and in addition contains a wealth of detail that supplements the book (but which might be hard for a non-professional to comprehend before reading the book.) The book and the map together provide wonderful coverage of a fascinating subject.

Having visited Cephallonia twice, 1984 and 2000, we were amazed to receive this book for Christmas and fell in love with the island all over again. The book gives you a well-written history but "a picture is worth a 1000 words" is so applicable here. There are many other beautiful areas on Cephallonia then are dipicted in the book (there must be a limit somewhere) but I hope anyone who really reads this book will have a burning desire to see one of the most beautiful islands in the world. An absolute must to truly see the island is to rent a car and allow several days. Otherwise you will miss a lot.